Water Rescue

The team consists of 25 firefighters who are trained as Public Safety and Dive Rescue Specialist divers. The divers respond from fire stations within Evansville, but the cadre of equipment is at Station #3, and thus all firefighters from Station #3 support the team as dive tenders, boat operators, or equipment maintenance. The dive team utilizes Intespiro Divator & OTS Stealth full face dive mask with underwater communications, and DUI dry suits that enable divers to enter contaminated or cold waters. DUI TLS350 Public Safety dry suits have been added to the PPE inventory to diversify our dry suit capability, and the flexibility of their ZipSeal technology to better fit more divers around their necks & wrists. Should water rescue operations require the need of a boat, EFD is fortunate to have two capable boats. Our primary boat is a 22’ Scorpion aluminum hull, V8 jet-drive boat that is also capable of providing 2,500 gallons of water per minute for firefighting operations. A Humminbird side scan sonar allows us to scan the bottom of the Ohio River for submerged objects.

Captain Jon Grubb serves the dive team as its Instructor, and Captains Brandon Barnard, Keith Bowden, and Dan Brown serve as team leaders to coordinate the required training to maintain dive rescue competence and proficiency. In 2018, these team leaders will design an additional boat to be added to our fleet via grants and gifts from the West Nut Club, and Vanderburgh Community Foundation. EFD Capital purchases for the dive team in 2017 included: